There Is More to Life Than Protecting Your Heart

I do believe that we need to guard our hearts from being hurt, taken advantage of, and really just never want to be too gullible. You just need the right amount of gullible so that you do not end up looking at everything through the eyes of someone jaded by life.

The past several months has me thinking about exactly what jaded means.

I remember the Aerosmith song “Jaded” and back then I didn’t really get it. Now, all these years later…I completely get it. I never wanted my kids to feel this and so I taught them to protect themselves. You can let people in but you must protect yourself, don’t get too close. All of sudden, I saw everything like a fast forward movie and how now I am seeing spending time with people as value added instead of before I was jaded in everything.

Don’t get to close…people die, move away, and leave. So, love them but always remain separate. That is how I got by without shedding a tear for about 18 years because if you don’t let people in your heart you won’t get hurt.

What I didn’t realize is that in all of those lessons I taught my sons, I taught them not to love openly. This is going to take some real conversations with them to undo but, I am doing it. I have already start making my apologies and talking with them about “let’s find this line of love and compassion and not going to deep but valuing time with people”.

Let me tell you something about shutting people out…eventually you really do find yourself in a very lonely place and THAT is NO FUN at all!

I have always loved people. How we are all original, our differences, our likes, how it can take ten people with 10 same traits to make ME! It’s just fascinating how many combinations of things that it takes for the human race. Our God has a great imagination and A LOT of LOVE. So, if He made all of us to enjoy, then He plans on us to enjoy each other too, all of our likenesses and our differences. I don’t think He created us to stay away from each other so that we protect our hearts from all other people.

This whole train of thought it what has led me to see that finding value in spending time with people and enjoying what we all have to offer now is important. Even if you are a self-diagnosed LONER, alone time is great but time with people is too!